GAIETY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gaiety mean? 

• GAIETY (noun)
  The noun GAIETY has 2 senses:

1. a gay feeling

2. a festive merry feeling

  Familiarity information: GAIETY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GAIETY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A gay feeling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

gaiety; merriment

Hypernyms ("gaiety" is a kind of...):

happiness (emotions experienced when in a state of well-being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gaiety"):

glee; gleefulness; hilarity; mirth; mirthfulness (great merriment)

jocularity; jocundity (a feeling facetious merriment)

jolliness; jollity; joviality (feeling jolly and jovial and full of good humor)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A festive merry feeling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

gaiety; playfulness

Hypernyms ("gaiety" is a kind of...):

levity (feeling an inappropriate lack of seriousness)

 Context examples 

Miss Crawford came with looks of gaiety which seemed an insult, with friendly expressions towards herself which she could hardly answer calmly.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Oh! she cried with more thorough gaiety, if you fancy your brother does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret, and hear his opinion.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk, to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"But gaiety never was a part of MY character."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Nor was her residence at her mother’s house of a nature to restore her gaiety.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The friendly frankness was disturbed, the sunshine had a shadow over it, and despite their apparent gaiety, there was a secret discontent in the heart of each.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh—fretfully at first, but soon with returning gaiety.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)